APSO & Groovy: The argument continues

In the issue dated Aug 30-Sep 5, the DQ Week ran a story titled 'Another scam in Nehru Place'. Subsequent to that we have discovered that the story had more twists than envisaged.

Recalling the whole story again, the episode begun in October 2000 when Aman Kumar of APSO Electronics approached Ashok Grover of Groovy Communications for a six month contract, to last till March 2001, for regular supply of HP printers, with a bank guarantee of Rs 10 lakh. Grover then introduced him to Sanjeev Anand of Computer Mart, which also entered into a contract with APSO with a bank guarantee of Rs 5
lakh.

Kumar used to buy the material from both of them on credit and paid through PDCs, for 15 days, for the actual cost of the product.

The modus operandi Kumar followed was--he picked up material from Groovy and Computer Mart during the day time; piled them up in a tempo and got them back in the evening in Nehru Place. He then sold them off at a much lesser price then that of the original, which obviously got him a welcome start and a
name--tempowala.

The plan was working fine for Kumar and all other small dealers in the market and it even continued for a couple of months. It was the main dealers who were feeling the heat as there was fluctuation in the market prices, which was increasing by each passing day and when it reached a height that prices were even lower than that of the principals, they decided to investigate it.

At the same time, Anil Sachdeva, CEO, Kadam Marketing, and President, DCTA, called up the Directors of Groovy and Computer Mart to tell them the truth about Kumar, as he had known him for years and was well aware of his shrewd activities. "I told both Grover sahib and Sanjeev to stop giving him the material. I even showed them the serial numbers of the products that they were selling him, which later in the day was available at dirt cheap rates. But they said that we are 'safe' with his bank guarantee and are getting our payments in time. So why should we bother?," recalled
Sachdeva.

It continued till February, when three representatives of principal companies (for the first time in the history of Nehru Place), Rajiv Saxena from LG, Vivek Prakash from Samsung and Princy Bhatnagar from HP, got together to put a tab on this. After certain rounds of meetings with all the main dealers of Nehru Place, they all concluded one thing--there was this new guy in the market, known as tempowala, and his prices were lower than everybody else.

Also whenever a product was transacted through him, it came down on the price chart. And somewhere or the other, whole and all of his transactions seemed rather fishy. They also contacted both the suppliers (Groovy and Computer Mart), but got the same response as Sachdeva. According to Saxena, one of the dealers went to Kumar's office, and came back saying that it barely had anything to be described as a office. It housed a chair and a table at the end of a workshop-looking premises and a non-working generator to welcome the visitor. This was the point where people raised eyebrows and doubted his credentials. One factor that set the stage on fire was that Groovy was only the dealer for HP and rest all the material that he had to source was from rest of the market, and again from dealers at his level, that is the major players. As Saxena explained, "We then instructed the 10 main dealers in the market, not to give material to Groovy. Another step that we took was, we assigned one dealer to buy all the material from Kumar, which was again not much in quantity, and sell it off at the normal price. This then worked as a first step to stop this muddle in the market."

Talking technically, there was basically this one clause in the agreement that both of them had signed before getting into the contract which reads, "That in case M/s Groovy Communication fails to comply with the supply condition, the bank guarantee can be revoked and further if he wants to withdraw from terms of the above agreement, a notice of 30 days has to be given to M/s APSO Electronics in writing as well as to the bankers."

Now because Groovy could probably not source the material from the market, he failed to supply Kumar, with effect to which Kumar stopped his cheque payments, which agitated Grover. This was when both of them got into the argument, of non-payment or non-supply.

As Saxena of LG recalls, "This was also the time when calendar marked four consecutive holidays in the month of April and Kumar could not rotate the material and prices in the market, and this gave a breakthrough in the fluctuating market."

It was at this time that Kumar was asked to leave the market, after which he was left with no choice. As DQW News Bureau spoke to Kumar about the past allegations, he denied them outright and claimed that he was never a part of 'any such' thing. When inquired about his current operations, he claimed of being in the selling of 'computers' only, but only in Patiala. Kumar said that he gets his material from someone called Arun Syndicates, apart from many others, for which he did not reveal details, saying, "I would not like to disclose my trade secrets and before all, why do you want to speak to him?"

Also when asked about his presence in Nehru Place, he said, "I took a shop in Nehru Place, but seeing the dirt margin of Rs 10-15, I closed it there. I did not like the working environment of the market."

Located in the rear, everybody went back home, market came back to normal, dealers were ready to take care of new problems, but these two people have been fighting ever since. Both of them are stuck on this argument over the actual payment amount. APSO says it is Rs 5.85 lakh whereas Groovy claims that to be Rs 15.5 lakh. This was from the notice issued to Kumar by Groovy, to terminate the order and release the payment. Whereas Kumar only told that verbally.